The Secret Lives of Southern Appalachian Butterflies and Moths

The Jackson County Public Library and The Balsam Mountain Trust have partnered for a series of talks on various topics on Southern Appalachian nature. The next talk will be 'The Secret Lives of Southern Appalachian Butterflies and Moths' on Thursday, February 26th at 6pm in the Community Room of the library. 

 Who has not been struck by the beauty of butterflies and moths, with wings like canvases bright with color and pattern? Yet there is more than meets the eye with these insects, their colors reflecting a remarkable array of ecological dramas and intrigues. Where do these colors come from, what do they signal, and for whom? Join entomologist Jim Costa for an exploration of the secret lives of familiar and not-so-familiar southern Appalachian butterflies and moths, and how to attract and support them in home gardens and landscapes.

An entomologist, evolutionary biologist, and Darwin and Wallace scholar, Jim Costa teaches biogeography, Darwin's Origin of Species, and a Humboldt-inspired comparative temperate-tropical ecology field course in the s. Appalachians and the Andes of Ecuador. His most recent books include 'Radical by Nature: The Revolutionary Life of Alfred Russel Wallace' (Princeton), and 'Darwin and the Art of Botany: Observations on the Curious World of Plants'(Timber Press). Jim has held research fellowships at several institutions in the US and abroad, and he and his wife and collaborator Leslie Costa were named the 2025 Steve Kemp Writer- and Illustrator in Residence in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, during which they worked on their forthcoming insect natural history field guide for the Smokies. Jim's honors include the Alfred Russel Wallace Medal and the Stephen Jay Gould Prize of the Society for the Study of Evolution.

This program is free and open to the public. For more information please call the library at 828-586-2016. The Jackson County Public Library is a member of the Fontana Regional Library.
 

Location

Jackson County Public Library

Sylva NC
28779